march-ditch

With a shiver in the very middle of his body, he hastened to the other side: there lay the country of air, and fire, and safe earthly homeliness: the side he left was the dank region of the unknown, whose march-ditch was the grave.

Warlock o' Glenwarlock George MacDonald 1864

Many a summer evening have I gone to the march-ditch of the farm that my father's now in, and looked at the place I loved, till the tears blinded me, and I asked it as a favor of

The Poor Scholar Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of William Carleton, Volume Three William Carleton 1831